Profile of Ferrari chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by herowassenna

In relation to the Hondas and Yamahas? Because he's consistently been the lead Ducati in races.

Throughout his career, Rossi was never the Pole Position king, he was always the racer, how many times has he come through the field to win. If there's one Italian in top level sport who doesn't do emotional, I'd say its Rossi. Allied to Burgess, a no-nonsense Aussie who's record speaks for itself, they don't do panic.

Burgess is the calming influence there, I would say.

He's been made to look very ordinary on occasion. Not least by his team mate, and other lesser riders on the 'satellite' bikes. One thing is for sure. No one rode that Ducati like Stoner did.

[herowassenna]

Originally Posted by Marbot

Burgess is the calming influence there, I would say.

He's been made to look very ordinary on occasion. Not least by his team mate, and other lesser riders on the 'satellite' bikes. One thing is for sure. No one rode that Ducati like Stoner did.

There are people on here who I expect to have lost all sense of reason, but Marbot I'm shocked... each to their own as they say

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by herowassenna

There are people on here who I expect to have lost all sense of reason, but Marbot I'm shocked... each to their own as they say

Stoner rode the Ducati beyond its safe limit, passed the point at which he had no idea what the front wheel was up to, and most of the time he got away with it. Rossi et al, are still wondering why they can't ride/engineer it passed that same limit. They have now found out just how good/bad that Ducati actually is and has been for the last few years.

Meanwhile, Stoner wins championship at a canter.

But this is an F1 forum, so enough about that.

[herowassenna]

Originally Posted by Marbot

Stoner rode the Ducati beyond its safe limit, passed the point at which he had no idea what the front wheel was up to, and most of the time he got away with it. Rossi et al, are still wondering why they can't ride/engineer it passed that same limit. They have now found out just how good/bad that Ducati actually is and has been for the last few years.

Meanwhile, Stoner wins championship at a canter.

But this is an F1 forum, so enough about that.

I agree about the F1 Forum, all I can say is that I saw Simoncelli's accident live. But for the grace of God, it could have happened to Stoner.
Rossi rides very differently to Stoner. The man has been a consistent winner on all bikes all through his career, so he has reached a point in his life that he's not willing to ride a heap of s*** to get 4th instead of 5th, so what.
People also seem to forget this man has been carrying an operated shoulder all season, and he knew that the first few months of the year he wouldn't have the required strength to ride to the maximum.
Ducati have gone down a bad development route, something they seem to have admitted finally, let's see what happens next year.

[Bononi]

I'm still confused with all that but I'm sure I'm going to do something about it.

[Born Racer]

Short of having the fortune to drive both cars, I cannot say whether Clarkson's assessment is one I'd agree with. He may feel Ferrari has more soul because he too has been swayed by the 'aura' they seem to exude over people.

Originally Posted by herowassenna

Anyway, time to get back to work, lol

Yes, me too.

[herowassenna]

Originally Posted by Born Racer

Short of having the fortune to drive both cars, I cannot say whether Clarkson's assessment is one I'd agree with. He may feel Ferrari has more soul because he too has been swayed by the 'aura' they seem to exude over people.
Yes, me too.

Born, I mentioned Clarkson simply because his has a way with words. Not necessarily journalistic in his prose, but certainly entertaining. If you watch his TopGear review of the 458, you will also see him pulling apart some of Ferrari's past cars, which despite their name, just weren't up to the legend.
Evo magazine, Autocar, Car and several other publications have all reached the same conclusions about the MP4/12C vs 458 debate.
Recently, in one magazine, they had a Porsche GT3 vs the Mclaren around a track. Their lap times were only about a 10th apart, until Mclaren got their test driver in the car, Chris Goodwin, who made the gap up to around a second.
The magazine reported that this showed the Mclaren's ultimate pace, but it needed the car being driven beyond the journalists ability to achieve the time. Porsche didn't send over Hans Stuck to even out that score..
I agree that most people given the choice of a Mclaren or Ferrari may well be swayed by their "aura", but we are talking professional journalists who write about the nuances of these cars.
Chris Harris wrote an article about the Porsche GT3 vs Ferrari 458 some months back, and whilst he accepted that the Ferrari was a brilliant car, he thought the Porsche gave him more feedback and more enjoyment of purely driving.

[Oldtony]

Originally Posted by Kempi

Could very well be. Montezemolo was just interviewed by auto motor und sport here in Germany and was asked about Italian drivers for Ferrari. He said he preferred not to hire them and if given a choice would always choose a foreign driver as for Italians the pressure would be too high to perform.

Interesting that in his final years Enzo adopted the same attitude.
It was also claimed in those days that it was because he didn't have to endure the same hostility from the Italian media and people when a foriegn driver was killed rather than an Italian hero.
Interesting that the improvement in safety that we seem to be complaining about at places like Abu Dhabi has removed that sort of factor from the public perception of F1.

[herowassenna]

I don't know what it is about Italian drivers, and I'm as patriotic about Italians as you guys are about your national heroes, but I believe Enzo was playing a little with the press.
The truth of the matter was that since the 50's, what really great Italian drivers have there been?
And whilst there's some truth to Ferrari not employing Italian drivers in his later years, what about Michele Alboreto who drove for enzo from 1984 to 1988..

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by herowassenna

Chris Harris wrote an article about the Porsche GT3 vs Ferrari 458 some months back, and whilst he accepted that the Ferrari was a brilliant car, he thought the Porsche gave him more feedback and more enjoyment of purely driving.

I guess that most of us will just have to take his word for that. Even the ones that can only stretch to buying one or the other.

Which reminds me. Is it a 'rollover' this week ?